A few years ago my sisters and I found ourselves pondering about life. Alex, worked at her job for over 8 years, moved to Colorado for a new experience only to find herself back in Charleston working at the same job again. Gabby, graduated college, moved back to her home town in hopes to land a job in the public health sector only to find herself working the same job as Alex, now going on 4 years. Vicky on the other hand was a little more free spirited and jumped around jobs finding the right fit, only to find herself broke.
As we all sat there on the beach with friends and the pups, we got to thinking about what we wanted in life, what made us happy and what we were passionate about. One word came to mind...travel. We reflected upon our travels, what we saw, who we met, what we ate, and that was when we really got to thinking about the differences between cultures. One main difference is diet. Traveling almost desensitized us from what exactly we were eating, we were happy to eat anything if it was new, tasty, and decent smelling! We didn't really understand the value of all of the insects, vegetables, and odd foods we were eating until we did our research and compared it to our culture. Before you knew it we were ordering live crickets by the thousands to our house and googling how to build an insect farm and raise insects. We built our quaint little insect farm in my guest bedroom and are now about to go off to a new venture selling edible insects for human consumption to our peers and community in the form of baked goods and flour. We have no idea what to expect from it, all we do know is that we have never been this excited to put so much effort into a something without even knowing the outcome! Life really never has a specific plan for you; one day you could be working a job, two jobs, no job, the next you feel the urge to order crickets to your house to eat them. What we do know is nothing can take away the experiences we've shared during this venture; all of the conversations it has opened up, people we've met, jokes, laughs, excuses to travel some more for "research," and knowing that we are taking a step forward in sustaining our future and promoting something for a good cause. Nothing can beat all of that!
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Thoughts for the end of the week:
We have had another little bump this week in our cricket endeavor. It is a hard process getting crickets on the market and we have met many challenges. We realize it will be a while before we can change the anti-bug eating concepts over here in the states but we will get there little by little. We are opening the eyes of law makers to now make changes to FDA regulations and to even give thought about how they are going to be regulating the soon-to-be bug consuming population! Jiminy Co. is one of the many companies in the US making a step to a more sustainable environment one cricket at a time. Here is a site that gives 10 more reasons to look at how to help our planet through food: http://www.simplebites.net/10-tips-for-sustainable-eating/ This is a little video we put together during our stay in Panama. We made cricket veggie empanadas and gave it to everyone in the house and compiled some interesting interviews! Our Abuelita (grandma) is the very last interview, she is so special to us and getting her approval meant the world to us! We always knew she had an exceptional palate for good food! Empanada recipe credit has to go to our amazing Damaris, who is pretty much our second mother! She is a jack of all trades and there is nothing that she cannot do! She was more than excited to cook with the flour and she made some amazing dishes that even the hardest critic in the house could not deny. She so generously gave us her recipe to share with you! We hope you enjoy. EMPANADAS 2 cups of Jiminy Co. flour 2 sticks of butter or margarine (room temperature) 2 egg yolks 1 tsp of salt 1 tsp of baking powder 4 tbsp of cold water 1. Add flour and dry ingredients together 2. Mix in eggs and water 3. Mix together and add more flour as needed and knead the dough until it gets soft 4. Put down loose flour on a flat surface and roll the dough-thin 5. Cut it into circles, however big or small you want it 6. Pick up a circle and place stuffing in the middle and fold...repeat until dough is gone 7. Egg wash before baking at 350 degrees for 15 minutes and TA DA baked empanadas |
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